TRUTH Serum

By Ryan Roth

**Flaming
Feather**

At first blush, one might think that this was the brainchild of some collection of Seraphim, possibly Jean's crew. One would be wrong.

TRUTH Serum one of the many useful products of Vapula's BioSciences Division (motto: A Better Hell though BIOCHEMISTY!). The project leader whose group developed it was rewarded with a Captain distintion for it, mainly because it gives Hell another means to reinforce an old point: On Earth, even the Truth can be made to serve Hell.

Naturally, mentioning this particular artifact has been known to cause uncontrolable twitching in Seraphim. Particulary Servitors of Revelation.

TRUTH Serum appears as an odorless, colorless, slightly sticky fluid. One syringe of the stuff is equivalent to one dose. To be used, the Serum must be either injected into the bloodstream or ingested. Either will work, but, if ingested, the substance will take one hour to activate. It cannot be used on Celestial forms, but will work on Celestials in Vessels.

Once active, the victim of the Serum (yes, victim is the appropriate word) will be unable to lie to anyone. Moreover, when asked a question -- any question -- the victim must make a Will roll (with a penalty equal to the level of the Serum used) to avoid telling the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth. The victim will go into explict detail about everything he or she knows even remotely relating to the question asked, saying Everything he or she believes to be True about the subject. The victim will only stop talking if he has said everything he knows, is physically retrained from talking, or is asked another question (which will cause another deluge of information). Answering questions takes precedence to all other activities, with the exception of actions which immediately preserve the victim's life (dodging gunfire, for example).

The Serum remains active in a person's system for one day plus (Serum Level - Corporeal Forces, minimum zero) days. If the victim is mortal, every time he fails a Will roll a single note of Distrubance is sounded, as proof that Celestials are directly and dramaticaly interfering in what he says.

Hell has used the Serum in a variety of ways, most notably for interrogation and the dramatic destruction of polictial careers (the demons over at the Media appreciate a head's up when you plan to do this -- they want to make sure all the right cameras are there). In addition, more than one Soldier of God has been carted off to the looney bin after describing to his neighbors how, last night, he fought off a pack of demons with the help of an angel than can run really fast and another angel that possesses peoples bodies (neighbor's question: "Whatcha been up to lately, Bill?").

It is for this last use that Asmodeus has placed all use of TRUTH Serum under his strict supervision -- it wouldn't do to have the eniter War become public ahead of schedule. Because of this, TRUTH Serum is a very rare possesion and its fabrication method is classified (i.e., it's a plot device, not a character resource).

On the Heavenly side of things, angels of Lightning have been able to reverse engineer the substance from captured samples, and test have shown that it works equally well on Soldiers of Hell and demon vessels. Avaiablity is still quite restricted, as per Jean's orders.

Hell may have the last word on this front, however. At Asmodeus's direction, the BioSciences division is close to refining the formula. TRUTH Serum X, when developed, would be able to affect Celestial forms, would carry twice the Will penalty, and would cause the victim 2 Body and 1 Mind hit per hour it was in effect due to system degradation. Asmodeus has firmly marked TRUTH Serum X as 'For Game Interrogation Unit Use Only', which means you are on his list for even reading this.

**Flaming
Feather**

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